I guess I just don't see how that build can win (m)any games. Bloodbraid Elf is basically the one card that would make you want to splash green in a red beats deck IMO.
To me the red decks are shooting to try and blitz on turn 4 (or at least low enough life to untap and burn out t5 as the ideal)
wtwlf: This is a really nice example of a list. Do you find a card like Strangleroot Geist tends to often be cast later than turn 2? Thankfully he is a good enough card that he is rarely dead when topdecked, but he is the kind of beater I want to run out there early. I feel like green is probably the best colour to be in to avoid XX 2-drops, but sometimes you can end up with the awkward Molten Rain, Strangleroot Geist hand.
If green makes up a high enough percentage of the deck (like above) it can certainly see play on T2. There's 11 sources of green in there. But in the typical list, ya, I can expect T2 or T3 with regularity.
Here's one we had for comparison, I only record pools so I don't know the exact land base and I don't know exactly what he maindecked (but its pretty obvious normally)
He may or may not have splashed for Falkenrath Aristocrat. I know he played Crop Rotation which he used to get Strip Mine or pump his Geopede. Annoyingly (to me) he had Uktabi Orangutan in his sideboard (he seriously did side it in against me)
He was pretty pleased to get Mongrel and Jungle Lion as picks 44 and 45. I asked him "you were expecting someone to take them"? Personally, looking at it now I think he sorta whiffed and was actually short a playable or two.
He has a ton of finishers there. Magus sometimes crushes by himself. Symbol Status makes an army. Fireblast. Vortex.
But, the thing is, its a red deck with a splash for some green stuff (and a couple green two drops out of -- my opinion -- desperation). No way you could call it 'Stompy' at any rate. And other than picking up one or two more filler guys or better burn or something, thats about as good RG aggro gets IMO.
That looks good too. Basically, I like aggro decks in any combination of W/B/R/G, and supporting green aggro allows me to play a high-end aggro deck even if someone's playing Orzhov aggro at the table at the same time. If my deck winds up half green, supporting Stompy as a sub-theme allows me to go into a GR beatdown deck without running short on tools. While Boros aggro might me more ideal, I've found it to be important to have green aggro supported so I can fulfill my aggro requirements for multiple drafters.
I don't see how you can say that the list I posted isn't capable of winning any games, when it looks comparable to the list you posted above.
Here's one we had for comparison, I only record pools so I don't know the exact land base and I don't know exactly what he maindecked (but its pretty obvious normally)
He may or may not have splashed for Falkenrath Aristocrat. I know he played Crop Rotation which he used to get Strip Mine or pump his Geopede. Annoyingly (to me) he had Uktabi Orangutan in his sideboard (he seriously did side it in against me)
He was pretty pleased to get Mongrel and Jungle Lion as picks 44 and 45. I asked him "you were expecting someone to take them"? Personally, looking at it now I think he sorta whiffed and was actually short a playable or two.
He has a ton of finishers there. Magus sometimes crushes by himself. Symbol Status makes an army. Fireblast. Vortex.
But, the thing is, its a red deck with a splash for some green stuff (and a couple green two drops out of -- my opinion -- desperation). No way you could call it 'Stompy' at any rate. And other than picking up one or two more filler guys or better burn or something, thats about as good RG aggro gets IMO.
This list looks saucy, though if I may ask, what purpose does the Crop Rotation serve other than to get the Strip Mine, or to beef up the yard for Grim Lavamancer? This really seems like a list that might want almost any other card in existence in that slot.
That looks good too. Basically, I like aggro decks in any combination of W/B/R/G, and supporting green aggro allows me to play a high-end aggro deck even if someone's playing Orzhov aggro at the table at the same time. If my deck winds up half green, supporting Stompy as a sub-theme allows me to go into a GR beatdown deck without running short on tools. While Boros aggro might me more ideal, I've found it to be important to have green aggro supported so I can fulfill my aggro requirements for multiple drafters.
I don't see how you can say that the list I posted isn't capable of winning any games, when it looks comparable to the list you posted above.
Your end game is Stone Rains of which you have like 5 despite them being terrible (even worse in powered). And Vengevine which just means you struck out on every real finisher in red. Thats not getting it done.
Also, green added virtually nothing to your deck. How often are you casting 5 manaPlow Under at a relevant point in the game? Other than that it gave you a few generic beaters for the most part.
Again, he had Vortex, Fireblast, BBE, Oxid Hero, Symbol Status and Magus.
what purpose does the Crop Rotation serve other than to get the Strip Mine, or to beef up the yard for Grim Lavamancer?
What I saw him use it for was basically to super pump his Geopede (land drop + Fetchland makes it +6/+6 I think) and get Strip Mine. My guess is that he just didn't have anything else probably. I have Berserk listed in his pool but I don't believe he played it.
EDIT: full disclosure, I mocked him after he told me about grabbing Lions/Dogs last pick and then he beat me. Uktabi frickin' Orangutan.
What I saw him use it for was basically to super pump his Geopede (land drop + Fetchland makes it +6/+6 I think) and get Strip Mine. My guess is that he just didn't have anything else probably. I have Berserk listed in his pool but I don't believe he played it.
Whoops I missed seeing the Geopede. Another pretty cool interaction I suppose. Anyways, that list looks pretty good as long as the Magus of the Moon doesn't hose your own mana base too much!
Whoops I missed seeing the Geopede. Another pretty cool interaction I suppose. Anyways, that list looks pretty good as long as the Magus of the Moon doesn't hose your own mana base too much!
The more you encourage decks that are greedy for mana the better Magus gets. We see combo decks that are awesome but rely on Bazaar of Baghdad (grrrrrr..I'm taking that out!) or need 5 color lands because they're need double green in their blue black deck or whatever.
Thats where Magus rules and sometimes hes your only shot even. Its not necessarily dependent on how much fixing is in your Cube, but if you support those crazy archetypes you do end up having to run a bunch of fixing. I think Magus is weak in Cube overall but fantastic for us. Hes a bunch better than Price of Progress that was in the MODO cube.
The more you encourage decks that are greedy for mana the better Magus gets. We see combo decks that are awesome but rely on Bazaar of Baghdad (grrrrrr..I'm taking that out!) or need 5 color lands because they're need double green in their blue black deck or whatever.
Thats where Magus rules and sometimes hes your only shot even. Its not necessarily dependent on how much fixing is in your Cube, but if you support those crazy archetypes you do end up having to run a bunch of fixing. I think Magus is weak in Cube overall but fantastic for us. Hes a bunch better than Price of Progress that was in the MODO cube.
Don't get me wrong, I love the card I just would be a little anxious running him out knowing my only green sources would be Forests and Chrome Mox to cast 7 green spells, one of them 2GG.
That being said, if it ends up as devastating as it appears to be in some of your matchups, then by all means run out the Blood Moon Bear early and often.
EDIT: just saw that there is likely more than just 1 Forest in the deck ;). Long call night in the hospital... *sigh*
Your end game is Stone Rains of which you have like 5 despite them being terrible (even worse in powered). And Vengevine which just means you struck out on every real finisher in red. Thats not getting it done.
Also, green added virtually nothing to your deck. How often are you casting 5 manaPlow Under at a relevant point in the game? Other than that it gave you a few generic beaters for the most part.
Again, he had Vortex, Fireblast, BBE, Oxid Hero, Symbol Status and Magus.
Your attitude is just awful. If you wanna bash on winning decks because it's missing some of the nut cards that were in your "better" build, go ahead. But the deck I posted is fantastic, and plays great in powered/unpowered cubes alike.
LD (especially in that redundancy) is a great aspect to back up early aggression with.
LD (especially in that redundancy) is a great aspect to back up early aggression with.
Green added a TON of value to that deck.
By the way, I've been meaning to ask: Have you thought about adding Ice Storm at all? I'm a big fan but I really like three mana land destruction spells. Ice Storm into Bramblecrush into Acidic Slime is always great and it goes well with all of the red land destruction.
I'm personally not a big fan of LD for LD's sake (stuff like Stone Rain, that comes with nothing extra), but being able to play 2-3 of those type of spells after some early dudes (especially Plow Under) is a recipe for crushing.
I'm a little surprised at the attitude as well, considering that there isn't just one way to build a winning aggressive deck in Cube.
I was thinking of adding at least 1 more 3 drop into my cube. Green does perform better than blue at aggro but still can be very limited.Green offers a lot of good midrange cards in the 4 slot. Your 3 mana stuff is more limited. In my 3 slot I have Great Sable Stag, Viridian Shaman, Call of the Herd and Caller of the Claw. I was thinking of adding Troll Aesthetic or Ohran Viper. I'm trying to see which would be better. You also have cards like Champion Lambholt and Wolfir Avenger except I don't think they are as good.
If you dabble in any type of green control decks, Ohran Viper is a boss creature. I'd love to get it back into my list some day (may be able to during the GTC update).
By the way, I've been meaning to ask: Have you thought about adding Ice Storm at all? I'm a big fan but I really like three mana land destruction spells. Ice Storm into Bramblecrush into Acidic Slime is always great and it goes well with all of the red land destruction.
I've definitely considered it. I really like the green LD support suite, so I could see going for it.
I'm personally not a big fan of LD for LD's sake (stuff like Stone Rain, that comes with nothing extra), but being able to play 2-3 of those type of spells after some early dudes (especially Plow Under) is a recipe for crushing.
I didn't either. But recently I've noticed that having that one Stone Rain around allows me to take 2-3 "utility/multi-purpose" LD spells and turn it into a sub theme. Get 3-5 of those effects into an aggro deck and it's just backbreaking. Including 1-2 extra playable LD cards really helps to reach that critical mass.
If you dabble in any type of green control decks, Ohran Viper is a boss creature. I'd love to get it back into my list some day (may be able to during the GTC update).
I also like it in the UG tempo deck (see also: Edric, Tandem Lookout), or even in GW midrange where getting a few extra cards is nice. People just generally don't want to block it or use hard removal on it, and even red doesn't want to spend a bolt to kill a 1/3 (but may have to, or it'll roll over to the card advantage).
Also not a bad turn two play in ramp decks off of an elf (if you didn't draw more ramp), as not much can profitably block it that early.
We just added Ohran Viper for our draft last week. I don't remember seeing it but we played teams so I didn't play against everyone. I'm hoping it's good though. I remember being disappointed with it years ago, but my cube has changed dramatically, and I'd definitely be very happy playing it on turn 2.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
Oh, Spawnwrithe is definitely interesting. I ran it for a long time as my cube was powering up (to a still-unpowered state). It plays a bit like a much worse Pack Rat. Your opponent has to deal with it or it can take over the game. The thing is, it's very very easy for most decks to deal with. Still, I kinda miss the critter.
I'm one of the few people left who run Leatherback, and I'm about to cut a bit of the green aggro support and try a ramp theme. The primary green aggressive decks just aren't cutting it, and so I think I'm cutting the heavier green mana costed attacking creatures in favor of things like Primeval Titan/ramp spells/Natural Order + targets.
I wish it were not true, but I need to mix things up a bit because it has gotten stagnant and the players just aren't drafting the aggressive heavy-green cards.
You can always just run the best green 'aggro-only' creatures like Experiment One and Wolfbitten Captive. That's worked really well for us because there are so many green utility critters and beaters that are great in midrange and aggro alike, like Lotus Cobra and Tarmogoyf. Then you can dedicate a few more slots to real ramp support. Aggro will still thrive with green as a splash.
Speaking of which, Awakening Zone has been consistently super. It does so much besides ramp.
Speaking of which, Awakening Zone has been consistently super. It does so much besides ramp.
Yeah, Awakening Zone is really cool. If you have swords, your tokens wear them. If you have opposition, it's tough to lose. They block like champs, nullifying any lifelink bonuses. And it's pretty nice with Recurring Nightmare. Sometimes it proves to be a little slow or a little underwhelming if you don't have much to do with the tokens, but overall it's a pretty nice card.
To me the red decks are shooting to try and blitz on turn 4 (or at least low enough life to untap and burn out t5 as the ideal)
I don't know how you can even type that with a straight face. That deck is nuts.
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wtwlf: This is a really nice example of a list. Do you find a card like Strangleroot Geist tends to often be cast later than turn 2? Thankfully he is a good enough card that he is rarely dead when topdecked, but he is the kind of beater I want to run out there early. I feel like green is probably the best colour to be in to avoid XX 2-drops, but sometimes you can end up with the awkward Molten Rain, Strangleroot Geist hand.
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1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Jackal Pup
1 Rakdos Cackler
1 Stromkirk Noble
1 Jungle Lions
1 Wild Nacatl
1 Stormblood Berserker
1 Keldon Marauders
1 Plated Geopede
1 Ash Zealot
1 Wild Mongrel
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Hero of Oxid Ridge
1 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Symbol Status
1 Fireblast
1 Crop Rotation
1 Dismember
1 Reckless Charge
1 Arc Trail
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Chrome Mox
1 Strip Mine
1 Stomping Ground
1 Taiga
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Mountain
1 Forest
He may or may not have splashed for Falkenrath Aristocrat. I know he played Crop Rotation which he used to get Strip Mine or pump his Geopede. Annoyingly (to me) he had Uktabi Orangutan in his sideboard (he seriously did side it in against me)
He was pretty pleased to get Mongrel and Jungle Lion as picks 44 and 45. I asked him "you were expecting someone to take them"? Personally, looking at it now I think he sorta whiffed and was actually short a playable or two.
He has a ton of finishers there. Magus sometimes crushes by himself. Symbol Status makes an army. Fireblast. Vortex.
But, the thing is, its a red deck with a splash for some green stuff (and a couple green two drops out of -- my opinion -- desperation). No way you could call it 'Stompy' at any rate. And other than picking up one or two more filler guys or better burn or something, thats about as good RG aggro gets IMO.
I don't see how you can say that the list I posted isn't capable of winning any games, when it looks comparable to the list you posted above.
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I don't know man, Symbol Status and Mox Ruby are a nombo...
This list looks saucy, though if I may ask, what purpose does the Crop Rotation serve other than to get the Strip Mine, or to beef up the yard for Grim Lavamancer? This really seems like a list that might want almost any other card in existence in that slot.
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Your end game is Stone Rains of which you have like 5 despite them being terrible (even worse in powered). And Vengevine which just means you struck out on every real finisher in red. Thats not getting it done.
Also, green added virtually nothing to your deck. How often are you casting 5 manaPlow Under at a relevant point in the game? Other than that it gave you a few generic beaters for the most part.
Again, he had Vortex, Fireblast, BBE, Oxid Hero, Symbol Status and Magus.
What I saw him use it for was basically to super pump his Geopede (land drop + Fetchland makes it +6/+6 I think) and get Strip Mine. My guess is that he just didn't have anything else probably. I have Berserk listed in his pool but I don't believe he played it.
EDIT: full disclosure, I mocked him after he told me about grabbing Lions/Dogs last pick and then he beat me. Uktabi frickin' Orangutan.
Whoops I missed seeing the Geopede. Another pretty cool interaction I suppose. Anyways, that list looks pretty good as long as the Magus of the Moon doesn't hose your own mana base too much!
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GOmnath, Locus of ManaG
WUBSen TripletsWUB
BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG
The more you encourage decks that are greedy for mana the better Magus gets. We see combo decks that are awesome but rely on Bazaar of Baghdad (grrrrrr..I'm taking that out!) or need 5 color lands because they're need double green in their blue black deck or whatever.
Thats where Magus rules and sometimes hes your only shot even. Its not necessarily dependent on how much fixing is in your Cube, but if you support those crazy archetypes you do end up having to run a bunch of fixing. I think Magus is weak in Cube overall but fantastic for us. Hes a bunch better than Price of Progress that was in the MODO cube.
Don't get me wrong, I love the card I just would be a little anxious running him out knowing my only green sources would be Forests and Chrome Mox to cast 7 green spells, one of them 2GG.
That being said, if it ends up as devastating as it appears to be in some of your matchups, then by all means run out the Blood Moon Bear early and often.
EDIT: just saw that there is likely more than just 1 Forest in the deck ;). Long call night in the hospital... *sigh*
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Your attitude is just awful. If you wanna bash on winning decks because it's missing some of the nut cards that were in your "better" build, go ahead. But the deck I posted is fantastic, and plays great in powered/unpowered cubes alike.
LD (especially in that redundancy) is a great aspect to back up early aggression with.
Green added a TON of value to that deck.
I think you're 100% wrong. Plain and simple.
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By the way, I've been meaning to ask: Have you thought about adding Ice Storm at all? I'm a big fan but I really like three mana land destruction spells. Ice Storm into Bramblecrush into Acidic Slime is always great and it goes well with all of the red land destruction.
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I'm a little surprised at the attitude as well, considering that there isn't just one way to build a winning aggressive deck in Cube.
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I've definitely considered it. I really like the green LD support suite, so I could see going for it.
I didn't either. But recently I've noticed that having that one Stone Rain around allows me to take 2-3 "utility/multi-purpose" LD spells and turn it into a sub theme. Get 3-5 of those effects into an aggro deck and it's just backbreaking. Including 1-2 extra playable LD cards really helps to reach that critical mass.
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I also like it in the UG tempo deck (see also: Edric, Tandem Lookout), or even in GW midrange where getting a few extra cards is nice. People just generally don't want to block it or use hard removal on it, and even red doesn't want to spend a bolt to kill a 1/3 (but may have to, or it'll roll over to the card advantage).
Also not a bad turn two play in ramp decks off of an elf (if you didn't draw more ramp), as not much can profitably block it that early.
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I wish it were not true, but I need to mix things up a bit because it has gotten stagnant and the players just aren't drafting the aggressive heavy-green cards.
-AA
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Speaking of which, Awakening Zone has been consistently super. It does so much besides ramp.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Yeah, Awakening Zone is really cool. If you have swords, your tokens wear them. If you have opposition, it's tough to lose. They block like champs, nullifying any lifelink bonuses. And it's pretty nice with Recurring Nightmare. Sometimes it proves to be a little slow or a little underwhelming if you don't have much to do with the tokens, but overall it's a pretty nice card.
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